OBAMA HIDING HIS ILLEGAL ACTIONS!

(WFB)
– The Obama administration is withholding from Congress details about
how $1.3 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds was delivered to Iran, according
to conversations with lawmakers, who told the Washington Free Beacon
that the administration is now stonewalling an official inquiry into the
matter.

The Departments of
State, Treasury, and Justice have all rebuffed a congressional probe
into the circumstances surrounding the $1.3 billion payment to Iran,
which is part of an additional $400 million cash payout that occurred
just prior to the release of several U.S. hostages and led to
accusations that the administration had paid Iran a ransom.

The
Obama administration has admitted in recent days that the $400 million
cash delivery to Iran was part of an effort to secure the release of
these American hostages, raising further questions on Capitol Hill about
White House efforts to suppress these details from the public.

The
$400 million was part of a $1.7 billion legal settlement reached with
Iran earlier this year. Congressional inquiries into how this money
reached Iran are failing to get answers.

The State and Treasury Departments declined on Tuesday to answer a series of questions from theFree Beacon about the method in which U.S. taxpayer funds were paid to Iran.

The
administration is also withholding key details about the payment from
leading members of Congress, including Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and
Mike Lee (R., Utah), who launched an inquiryinto the matter earlier this
month.

The Departments of State, Treasury, and Justice all failed to respond to the inquiry by Monday’s deadline, according to congressional sources tracking the matter.

“The
already bizarre circumstances surrounding the $1.7 billion payment to
the Islamic Republic have only gotten stranger in the weeks since we
learned of the $400 million in cash that was sent to the Iranian regime
last January 16th,”
Cruz said to the Free Beacon. “If this payment was, as the Obama
administration insists, a straightforward settlement of an old debt that
it would have cost America more to contest, why all the secrecy?”

The
State Department said it does not know how the remaining $1.3 billion
was transferred or to whom it was transferred. Cruz described this
disclosure as “confounding.”

“It is even more confounding that the State Department spokesman claimed Monday
not to know how or to whom the residual $1.3 billion was transferred,
although he does know the transaction happened,” Cruz said. “That kind
of money doesn’t just transfer itself to a rogue regime still under
heavy U.S. sanctions for its sponsorship of terrorism. Someone in our
government must have the answers the American people deserve.”

Cruz
and Lee are seeking to determine if these payments violated U.S. law.
They also requested information about the U.S. officials who negotiated
and carried out the payments.

“While
we are deeply concerned about the national security implications of the
administration’s cash-for-hostages scheme, especially in light of
reports that Iran has already arrested additional Americans, the purpose
of this letter is to inquire about the legality of the payment,” the
senators wrote in an Aug. 12 letter.

“It
is imperative that the administration provide a full accounting of its
conduct with respect to the $400 million cash payment to Iran,” they
wrote. “If the administration violated the law, then Congress and the
American people should be made aware of it so that they can hold the
appropriate officials accountable and take whatever steps necessary to
strengthen the law and prevent any reoccurrence.”

While
the administration has remained silent about the circumstances
surrounding the payment, investigative reporter Claudia Rosett recently
disclosed that the Treasury Department transferred just under $1.3
billion to the State Department in 13 “large identical sums.”

The
funds, allocated for “foreign claims,” could shine a light on how the
administration moved taxpayer funds into the State Department’s purview
in order to provide the additional payment to Iran.

In
13 individual payments of $99,999,999.99, the Treasury Department moved
a total of 1,299,999,999.87, which roughly amounts to the remaining
money owed to Iran.